Page 76 of The Secret Dinner

“You son of a bitch,” I sneered, punching him in the face. Umberto fell back onto the chair. Stunned, he swiveled his head searching for the maid, but she was long gone. I grabbed him by the collar of his robe and shoved the flyer in his face. “Do you want to explain this to me?”

His eyes lazily scanned the picture and text on the flyer. “What do you mean? There’s nothing to explain.”

“That’s the woman we served on Wednesday, Umberto. It was her!”

“And?”

“Explain to me how Ruth’s body came from your crematorium if her fiancé’s out there looking for her.”

“How should I know, Dante?”

“She went for a walk on the beach and never came back! Did you kill this woman? Answer me!”

Umberto let out an obnoxious snicker, his lips bleeding. He was out of breath. His comb-over, carefully sculpted to hide his bald spot, spread in pathetic, tousled clumps on his head.

“Business is booming, it’s out of my control,” he said, almost spitting out his words. He was breathing so hard he sounded asthmatic. “Production has had to level up, now that we’ve got operations in several niche markets, not just the dinners.”

“Multiple niches? What the hell are you talking about?”

I took the knife from my waistband and pushed Umberto over to the picture window, where I made him kneel. When I held the blade against his neck, he raised his arms in surrender.

“There’s no point in killing me … It’s too late to stop it now.”

There wasn’t a whiff of fear in his voice, even with the sharp knife just a breath from his jugular. We stayed like that for a few seconds. When I didn’t say anything, he felt compelled to continue.

“I’m just following orders, Dante. Are you really trying to tell me you believed that whole crematorium story? Do you really think we could manage three dinners a week like that? That’s like thinking happy grass-fed cows from little family farms can sustain global consumption! We need to operate on an industrial scale, boy.”

“Are you killing people?”

“Let it go,” he said, gently pulling on my arm that held the knife. “You could never—”

I pressed the blade a little harder.

“Just tell me! Spit it out, you sick fuck! Or I’ll finish you right here. I don’t care if I go to jail.”

“You’re really better off in the dark, Dante … It’s for your own good.”

I made a small puncture in his skin, letting the blood trickle down his neck and stain his robe. I wasn’t about to go further, but I hoped that would be enough to make the old man squeal. Umberto wiped the blood with his index finger and licked it.

“Mm, tasty,” he said, eyes closed, like he was waiting for the guillotine to drop. “You always knew deep down these people were getting killed—it was just better to believe that story I made up. It was willful ignorance, Dante, conscious unconsciousness, because you could finally afford the life you always wanted.”

The knife shook in my hand. For a split second I pictured blood gushing from his neck like that first guy we butchered.

“Go on, kill me!” he spat.

My courage vanished. I lowered the knife, suddenly exhausted.

“I swear I didn’t know. I had no idea you were murdering people!”

“No need to beat yourself up, kid. It’s the very same instinct that keeps you from killing an animal but has you hungry for its meat at the store. We all live on a hypocritical diet, soothed by whatever tastes good. We feel sorry for the little piggies and baby cows, but we love a nice, juicy steak. My father used to quote some philosopher that ‘beauty is in the details, but cruelty prefers abstraction.’ He was right. You can kill me now if you want. But Vladimir won’t be happy when he hears what you did.”

“I’m not afraid of him.”

“You should be,” said Umberto, peeling my fingers from his neck. He offered his hand, like he was asking me to help him up. “Vladimir knows everything about you and your friends, your life back in Pingo d’Água, your parents, your family…”

I slumped into the chair—there was no way out.

“You’re fucking batshit, you know that? You’re a monster!”